August 8th, 2008

So after playing Cave Story and EarthBound, I thought I’d try Dragon Quest V. It was never released in the US for reasons that are most certainly not good enough. The game is fantastic, and rivals non-Chrono Trigger RPGs in every area. I liked EarthBound, but I love this game. I’m probably gonna start playing VI soon.

Dragon Quest V has a great story, it’s a bit limited by its medium, but you’ll still be hard pressed to find a better 8-bit silentÂ protagonistÂ than ol’ purple-head. He’s one of those Link/Crono-like characters who does nothing but silently suffer to help others and is all the more endearing for it. Kinda makes me miss the days before main characters started talking, if they aren’t anti-heros they only come across as annoying. Fortunately, he rarely speaks (and I mean rarely), despite the fact this game is a roughly a history of his life.

The game is oddly western too, it’s strange actually. It lacks a lot of the weird stuff the Japanese tend to put into their RPGs, destroying their own work with irritating mascots/characters and garish design, although there’s still some of that. Nobody’s perfect. Maybe I’ve just played too many Square RPGs.

Dragon Quest V is a fantastic classic SNES RPG. It really is the great game nobody played. They’re apparently remaking it for the DS, but I played the DeJap-translated SNES version.